It’s nights like this,
when the loudest noise is the ticking of the timeless clock on my bedroom wall,
that I wonder if anybody has ever loved me.

They have loved the way I float across waters while they crash with storms,
bringing their bodies safely to shore
as though the waves aren’t slowly seeping in,
rising to the top until I’m sunk in the sand.

Making castles on the ocean floor,
maybe they only ever cared for the habits I developed
trying to survive in a world that never wanted me.
Because it’s easy to benefit from someone so eager to please.

Longing for the day that someone sees me
rather than what I can do for them.
Rather than how small I can become for them.

Every night is like this,
because the loudest noise is the ticking of the timeless clock on my bedroom wall,
and I wonder if anybody has ever loved me
for any reason beyond knowing that
a shrinking girl fits in the palm of your hand
just so long as she is wrapped around your finger.

He sits,
silent for a month now,
a silence that fell upon my request.
It was my hands that placed the tape upon his lips.

His lips which I kissed with a fever
I haven’t felt since I was thirteen
and woke in the middle of the night only to find
that I hadn’t slept at all.

It was my hands that bound his.
His hands that wound me up
until all that was left was the desire to be his doll.
Something he could pretend to love,
without the responsibility that comes attached to it.

Attached like how he claimed he was to me.
Pretty words
like cobwebs in the corners of my room
that I can’t quite reach.
Can’t quite clean.

Clean like the white lies he adored so much.
The white lies that split my skin in two,
allowed him to crawl passed my barriers
that I had spent so long building.

A sad and foolish boy who mistook my body as his home.
As shelter while he felt weak.
Something to use.

Apologies in the form of an excuse,
and I can’t help but pray for the woman who allows him to speak.

Dreams are said to hold secrets of the subconscious.
Messages relayed from the brain to remind us of unresolved issues.

I have a collection of recurring dreams like others collect movies.
Mostly there to provide a resting place for the dust in the air,
but sometimes they are projected in the night.

Tonight it’s the one about teeth.
It usually starts with me standing in a public space,
most likely being looked at,
until my teeth fall from my mouth
one by one until there is nothing left.

A quick google search reassures me of three things
1. this is a common dream for others as well
2. this must mean I am anxious over things out of my control, and
3. that even in our worst fears we are not unique.  

I think about how people are a lot like teeth,
but I’m still learning how to lose people.

About all the ways I’ve laid myself out
as a welcome mat for whoever decides to clean their boots while passing

I am trying to remember that sometimes it’s natural for things to fall apart,
but no matter how much I think I understand what it means for someone to be gone,
I still find my tongue running over the gap.
The space that he should occupy,
that any other day he may have occupied.

His absence is slithering it’s way into my speech,
my voice stumbles around the syllables of his name
as if I must relearn what it means to live with a mouth without him in it.  

Missing teeth.
Like a black hole.
Like maybe you never belonged there in the first place.
Like being six years old,
and learning for the first time
that when something you thought you needed decides that you don’t anymore,
it hurts.

But when you’re six,
and you lose your first tooth,
you celebrate.

The magic of growing up makes the blood look like strawberry jelly,
instead of something to cry over.

But now I’m 19,
so the magic had worn off years ago
and the blood is just blood
and I still don’t know when to give up.

I choke on the word goodbye,
savoring the way it feels on the tip of my tongue,
like it could stay there forever,
instead of leaving my lips to meet him for the first time.

I’ve come to realize that this is less about him,
and more about the ways I tie myself to smoking houses
and refuse to leave even once the flames have began to lick at me.
More about the way I avoid commitment,
while sneaking off to hold hands with attachment as though the two aren’t related.

So I sit,
with gaps the shape of people in my mouth,
and I swallow the goodbye,
tucking it away for another time where I won’t be able to say it.

“The brain protects itself from trauma,”
she tells me
“It shuts off corridors full of memories in order to allow you to continue living in the house.”

The house,
which may or may not be a crime scene,
feels like a maze.
Like despite living here my whole life,
I’m not sure where certain hallways lead to,
or what that door opens up to display.
Like walking in the pitch black,
your hands dragging against the walls,
hoping you’ll end up somewhere familiar,
but there are more locks than entryways
and I just don’t have the keys.

“It’s to be expected, you know,”
her voice breaks me from my journey.
“Normal that parts of you are a mystery,
and I just want you to know,
there’s no guarantee you’ll ever get the answers you’re looking for,
but that doesn’t mean we can’t try”

I can hear the words hidden between her teeth,
a soft suggestion,
reminding me that these parts of my history are gone for a reason.
That maybe,
behind those doors is a monster that I don’t want to meet.

“The brain protects itself from trauma.”
Protection like this can sometimes feel like
you’re keeping secrets from yourself,
like somewhere deep down there is a child
who draws pictures and burns them before anybody
gets a glimpse at what her eyes have seen.

Sometimes I don’t care
about the past.
I wake up in the morning,
look at where I am now,
and can almost convince myself that it’s outside of me.
That I’m not affected by what I can’t remember.
I bask in the denial,
in the fact that I can’t be called a victim,
if I don’t recognize the violation.
I can’t suffer at the hands of a faceless,
and nameless atrocity,
only at the impact.

At the ways my hands shake when he moves too fast.
At how, as an adult,
I’m just now learning what it’s like to feel comfortable in my skin
and in others.

I realize I’m poking at a monster,
like every white person in a horror film,
I am investigating the basement when I should just move out.
but when your body is the building,
you have limited options of where to go.

I have ran in the other direction for so long,
and I’m so tired of the unknown.
If one day this door does open,
I don’t know what I will be confronted with.

But I do know that I am stronger than whatever it is that dwells here.
So when I can hear the door **** shake,
I no longer tremble with it.

I have learned to hold my ground,
to move towards the sunshine,
towards the garden,
to water the flowers there
and enjoy the growth.

They say lust is one of the deadly sins
but when his lips travel from my own,
down my neck,
exploring uncharted territory
it feels more heavenly than anything offered in the pages of the bible.

I don’t necessarily believe in god,
but I do believe that his hands are my welcome to the golden gates.
And if god is real,
She would want me drown in his embrace.

She would tell us that this,
this thirst that we have for one another,
is natural and as close to divine as we can get.

The frantic desire to be closer,
despite being on top of him already,
is a testament to the power She gives us.

A verse hidden between the lines,
She whispers about the apple,
and how the hidden knowledge Eve was granted
was never really a secret in the first place.
but instead,
a test of curiosity,
She dares us to explore.

To take a bite,
and savor the sweetness that we sink our teeth into.
never more alive than in the moments we are gasping for air,
trying so hard to breathe one another in.
Unsure of how long this night will last,
or if we will get another chance at being this bold.

Holding hands,
and throats,
exchanging smiles
and grasping on to anything we can wrap our fingers around.

Shirts,
hair,
sheets.

This is what She meant when She told us we would
long for the lewdness of our youth.

If god is real,
She would want nothing more than
our laughs and jokes to break up the intense reality that we are in.
She would send music down whenever he asks if I am still okay.
She would brighten the moon in glee,
because what could be more angelic than the halo
of hair spread out behind me.

What could be more holy than owning your body
shamelessly.
unbothered by the wind whistling,
cheering us on in this moment.

They say that lust requires a penance,
but if god is real,
She is proud in this moment.

She has granted us the tools and the instinct,
lust was never really a sin.
We don’t need to ask for an absolution,
She grants us pleasure,
whispers that we don’t need to be forgiven.

There is something so humane about
the animalistic sounds clawing their way from his throat.
At the end of the night,
I find myself praying,
thanking Her for each mark on my skin.
Never asking for Her mercy,
this is heaven on earth
and it was She who created it.

After sending yet another 10 second video of my feet crunching through trails of leaves,
I apologize for being annoying.
This is the second time in the last week I’ve shot this same take,
A modern day “wish you were here” postcard on repeat.

“What?” he says  “Not at all, you’re so cute”

I feel my resolve break to a million pieces beneath my foot
as if the tree branch above me shed it too.

The first person who reminds you what it’s like to be excited for the morning
Is like the crisp air of fall.
Easy to breathe,
just sharp enough to remind you it’s new.
And maybe fleeting.

But then again maybe he’ll linger.
Everything else about him
Is opposite of the last man who made my heart race.
Which is how I know I’m not being stupid.  

He pauses between flirts,
Moves his hand slowly when he’s near me,
Casually asks for reassurance,
That it’s okay that he touches me,
That I’m okay with him liking me.

I’ve never been treated with tenderness like this,
I got used to being crushed between teeth,
But he holds my name soft on his tongue
As if savoring the taste.  

When the man from the past
Finds my number once again,
I start to shake.
I can’t tell if I’m angry or afraid,
And then I remember the leaves,
And the chill of the breeze,
And my cold fingers find their way to the block button.

“I’m proud of you for standing up for yourself.” he says.